Studies on in vitro antiproliferative activities in Cruciferae vegetables

Abstract: Cruciferous vegetables have drawn a great deal of attention in cancer research because of their potential protective properties. In the present study, four vegetables viz., cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi and radish were procured and processed for cold extraction procedure using 70% ethanol. The extracts were subjected to the qualitative phytochemical analysis, quantitative estimation of glucosinolates content and in vitro antiproliferative activity by MTT assay on MCF7, DL and NIH-3T3 cell lines. The results of qualitative phytochemical analysis showed the presence of several bioactive compounds viz., polyphenols, flavonoids, terpenoids, steroids, glycosides and alkaloids. Quantitative estimation of glucosinolates in terms of potassium thiocyanate equivalence/5 mg of extract revealed that the cabbage has highest content of glucosinolate (122.6 µg) followed by cauliflower (109 µg), kohlrabi (101.6 µg) and radish (60.2 µg). The four cruciferous vegetables registered notable cell proliferation inhibition at different concentrations (50, 100, 200, 400 and 800 µg/mL) in a dose dependent manner against three different cell lines. The results of antiproliferative activity was expressed in terms of IC_50. Among the four vegetables, cabbage showed considerable cytotoxicity and cell proliferation inhibition with an IC₅₀ value of 192.5, 189.7, 589.7 µg/mL followed by cauliflower (378.7, 398.9, 597.9 µg/mL), kohlrabi (389.5, 396.9, 619.7 µg/ml) and radish (415.4, 423.3, 703.6 µg/ml) in three different cell lines MCF7, DL and NIH-3T3, respectively.. The present study underlines the epidemiological surveys that cruciferous vegetables possess anticancer effects might be due to the presence of glucosinolates augmented with other phytochemicals.